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Comment by X6S1x6Okd1st | Hacker News Reader

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X6S1x6Okd1st

If we are actually going to enforce this stuff:

Many speed limits are unreasonably low.

Many stop signs should really be yield signs.

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In my opinion, most non-freeway speed limits in the US are too high.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero

It seems unrealistic to try and get to 0 deaths on the road. Just with every other activity, there are risks that come with driving and I think people should be allowed to accept those risks, just like they do with any other somewhat dangerous activity. Are we going to introduce regulation to prevent people from doing other dangerous things like biking, or skiing?

Vision Zero is about _designing_ roads to be safe for all users. It is not just about driving, nor is it just about speed limits. The "zero" part is the driving vision of the program, it is not a target.

Vision Zero Principles, as stated in the linked Wikipedia article:

Vision Zero is based on an underlying ethical principle that "it can never be ethically acceptable that people are killed or seriously injured when moving within the road transport system." As an ethics-based approach, Vision Zero functions to guide strategy selection and not to set particular goals or targets. In most road transport systems, road users bear complete responsibility for safety. Vision Zero changes this relationship by emphasizing that responsibility is shared by transportation system designers and road users.

> it can never be ethically acceptable that people are killed or seriously injured when moving within the road transport system

This is the part I don't agree with. What makes it unethical that people die while choosing to participate in a somewhat dangerous activity? Sure, we could halve all of the speed limits and put speed cameras everywhere. We could also force people to wear face helmets and kneepads when riding their bike, and wear a life jacket while swimming. But I don't think we should do any of those things since people should have the freedom to take reasonable risks.

"choosing to participate"

Using the streets and sidewalks to get to work and/or school is not an optional activity for most people.

What do you mean by "choosing to participate in a somewhat dangerous activity"? Are you talking about driving, or are you talking about using roads in general? 40% of the traffic deaths in my city last year were pedestrians. This is a risk people are exposed to just by choosing to leave their homes on foot, which I find completely unacceptable.

Your libertarian fantasy would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that you 2 tonne steel box can kill /other/ people when you drive excessively fast and crash.

I'm not a libertarian, I just think the current speed limits should be increased to the speed people actually drive at, and then enforced. Speed differential is a big component of what makes driving dangerous, rather than just speed itself. 120km/h-130km/h is not excessively fast on a highway when everyone else is going that speed. If you don't want to take the risk of going on fast roads, that's fine, just take country roads or slower city roads, pretty much the only risk you have is crashing on your own.

Speed differentials increase the probabilities of accidents.

Speed increases the severity of accidents.

Decreasing the probability while increasing the severity may not provide any benefits.

I think this program is dumb and I don't support implementing it. We could easily make our lives worse by implementing various hypervigilant safety measures: no sugary drinks, no distilled alcoholic beverages, no showers without handrails, no pit bulls, and so on. Most people won't vote for such programs because they don't want to live that way. Life is inherently risky, and re-evaluating every activity in terms of someone's right to avoid a tiny probability of accidental death in order to foist a utilitarian orthodoxy on the public is a stupid fad that needs to die. People already voted against Jimmy Carter's lower-all-the-speed-limits programs in the '70s, there's no reason to revive that losing culture war. We have real problems, like climate change, racial inequality and unsustainable land use, and as long as reformers refuse to acknowledge the hamburger problem --

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/07/josh-barro-democrats-...

-- we'll never get the political support we need to solve them.

"tiny probability of accidental death"

The leading cause of death for young people in many jurisdictions is not a tiny probability.

Honestly I am much more in favor of better pedestrian protection, looking critically redesigning bad intersections & traffic calming measures than speed limit reductions.

Moving towards zero deaths from road way transportation seems like a worthly goal

What makes a speed limit "unreasonably low"?

It's a 6 lane highway, the speed limit is 55, and everyone is going 75, including police officers. That's an indication the speed limit is unreasonably slow.

Re: I-270 Maryland

This has been studied to death, seriously, it doesn't need to be argued here. Actual traffic engineers design roads all the time for a particular speed limit. A lot of the actual limits implemented, however, are purely political. And basically ineffective, as has been documented repeatedly. If you want people to go slower, there are easy ways to achieve that through correct road design.

My understanding is that it is standard practice in traffic engineering to set speed limits to the 85th percentile speed of observed traffic.

http://www.mikeontraffic.com/85th-percentile-speed-explained...

Sure, they design the road with a target (including non-speed-related requirements), then observe, then recommend a speed limit. If it's too fast, they can do things like narrow the lanes, etc, which will slow traffic down. Changing the signs does nothing, more or less, because only about 10% of drivers base their speed on the sign.

Portland is going through this right now. Dropped the speed limits on all the former 25 mph roads to 20 mph. The result is predictable. If the city wanted people to slow down on the small surface streets, they should make them narrow enough that it's somewhat challenging to fit two cars on side by side. Works every time, needs no more enforcement to make it work.

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